‘The Avengers: Age of Ultron’ Probably Won’t Include Agent Coulson

Comic-Con 2013 may be over, but it brought with the reveal of the title for Marvel Studios’ next superhero team-up movie – The Avengers: Age of Ultron. The sequel now seems closer than ever, though it won’t begin filming until next year, and after The Avengers made $1.5 billion at the box office, becoming the highest-grossing comic book movie of all time, there’s a lot of hype to live up to.

Amidst this are questions and speculation as to which characters from the first movie will be making a return. It’s already been confirmed that Loki won’t be in this one (as the title suggests, there’s a new villain in town), but what about Loki’s “victim,” Agent Phil Coulson, who was last seen in The Avengers with a supposedly fatal stab wound? Now that Coulson is getting his own spin-off TV show, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., could he make a return in The Avengers: Age of Ultron as well?

Unfortunately for Coulson fans who were hoping to see the unflappable (well, unless he’s around Steve Rogers) special agent return to help the team in The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Whedon says that Coulson isn’t in the current draft of the script. In an interview with the Associated Press, Whedon explained that he’s currently struggling to cut the script down, rather than trying to add extra bits in:

“He could [return]. Right now it’s not something I’m pursuing because I have so much going on in ‘Avengers 2′. Finding out that Coulson is alive would be an entire B story. And I already have too much movie.”

Whedon does have an exhausting amount of story to fit into The Avengers: Age of Ultron already. As the title suggests, the film will be an origin story for robotic Marvel villain, Ultron (different from his comic book origins, since Henry Pym AKA Ant-Man apparently won’t be involved in the story). All of this will be layered on top of the already impressive task of once again bringing together characters from four separate franchises and managing to give a reasonable amount of focus to each of them, as well as developing character arcs for Hawkeye, Black Widow, Nick Fury and many others from the Marvel universe.

In the other direction, Whedon was also quizzed about the possibility of Marvel movie characters making an appearance in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Specifically, he was asked whether Samuel L. Jackson – who had apparently expressed an interest in having a role on the show – would be joining the S.H.I.E.L.D. team on the small screen. Whedon explained why, although he loves the idea, he’s not sure if it could be worked out:

“We would love to have Sam in the house. If we could work it out, we’d do it in a heartbeat. He’s Sam. What are we, new? But we also have the movies and we have TV and we need to make sure there’s some crossover, but not so much that people go, ‘Well, I don’t need to see that movie. I saw it on TV.’ If we do that (Marvel Studios President) Kevin Feige is going to come after me with a pitchfork.”

It’s sort of understandable that Marvel wouldn’t want to put its major stars in the TV show, but is Jackson did take a role in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. he would have to be prepared to accept the comparably meagre paycheck that came with it. Aside from voice work for The Boondocks and Afro Samurai, Jackson has never taken a regular starring role in a TV show, so if he does end up making an appearance on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. it will likely only be a cameo.

Since Coulson has been the connecting thread between so many of the Marvel movies so far, are you sorry to hear that he probably won’t be returning for The Avengers: Age of Ultron?

_____

Thor: The Dark World opens in theaters on November 8th, 2013, Captain America: The Winter Soldier on April 4th, 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy on August 1st, 2014, The Avengers: Age of Ultron on May 1st, 2015, Ant-Man on November 6th, 2015, and more unannounced Marvel films for May 6th, 2016, July 8th, 2016 and May 5th, 2017.

30 Comments

Post a Comment

Want to change your avatar?Go to Gravatar.com and upload your own (we'll wait)!

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Rules: No profanity or personal attacks. Use a valid email address or risk being banned from commenting.

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail

If your comment doesn't show up immediately, it may have been flagged for moderation. Please try refreshing the page first, then drop us a note and we'll retrieve it. Keep in mind that we do not allow external links in the comments.

Nick 1 year ago

This kind-of upsets me, but I’m sure the deception on Fury’s part is going to come up SOMEWHERE either in CAP: TWS, or TA2.

I agree, he should stay dead because as much as I liked Coulson, as much as I accept people coming back from the dead in the comics, it is kinda silly when you think about it and cheapens the effect the death originally had on an audience.

they need to get this over with and just say the coulson that died or was fatally stabbed was a LIFE MODEL DECOY. because alot of fans dont understand in the world of comics nothing stays dead and is based on what marvel writers want to do with hero.

I can understand the reasoning behind it.
Plus, isn’t the series Agents of SHIELD main draw Agent Coulson and how he is alive?
If you place it into the movie then you might be drawing away from the show. Depends how the series tackles it.

I see The Avengers films as their own franchise just as Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America have their own. The Avengers film serves as tying in the separate plots together and reveal they were all pieces to a larger story but without having to be bloated, contradictory, and dependent on any other previous film that newcomers cannot enjoy the film as well as seasoned fans.

One of the great thing about The Avengers was that it made the lead in films work better in hindsight by offering a conclusion of sorts to much of their proposed storylines. The Avengers worked that it did not need audiences to watch all or not even any of the lead in films to work on its own.

Now Phase 2 films and the TV series must now improve over Phase 1 and work on stand alone that only require minimally previous films to work on its own, just as The Avengers. So surely, Whedon just wants to focus the story he wants to tell and not try to repeat or dilute his story that may work on its own in another medium.

Joss Whedon now has the chance to really tell the Avengers story and make a film he has wanted to do from the beginning but couldn’t because he had to “fix” things or fit inside a pre-established boundary. He now has reign and freedom to tell that story.

if samuel jackson is willing to do it, work it out and give this show some
more credible claws. a bunch of no name shield agents and no name superpowered individuals without costumes will not cut it for too long.
they should have just tied the cartoon to the MCU like they originally said
they were going to do and take a risk and put it on primetime. there has never been a shield cartoon by itself and when they do appear in animation
it is always to deal with the marvel superheroes or villians.

“All of this will be layered on top of the already impressive task of once again bringing together characters from four separate franchises and managing to give a reasonable amount of focus to each of them, as well as developing character arcs for Hawkeye, Black Widow, Nick Fury and many others from the Marvel universe.”

Sometimes I hate the phrase “character development. In many cases, sometimes all a characters job is to simply be involved, they don’t need to have a story arc in every single film they’re in. What else needs to be developed about Fury, except the fact that he’s manipulator? Black Widow & Hawkeye should not need a story arc in this film. That should be saved for a Captain America or Shield film. This movies focus should only be about The Avengers as a team, and Ultron, not side arcs about individual characters. And I’m not angry if it sounds like I’m typing in rage, I’m just giving my opinion.

true we dont need no more side arcs. considering that pym wont be creating
ultron and the fact that technology still not there to do thanos justice.
iam just trying to figure out how there will be an age of ultron, his origin, and quicksilver and scarlet witch all crammed into a 2 and half hour movie.

I get Joss Whedon’s logic, seeing as Kevin Feige is seriously the head honcho of all of this, not Joss.

Also, story wise, I feel like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is more of the micro side of the division, sort of like how you have different fields in the FBI or CIA. To have Fury appear in the show’s story would mean that the conflict is a pretty serious issue, no?

I understand Coulson probably has alot already on his plate being reborn and coming back from the dead and stuff, as well as running Agents of Shield, so that is OK he isn’t in Avengers #2; in fact, I had not even thought about it. However, I am bummed although not totally surprised no Goliath and Wasp in Avengers #2 (they’d sure as thunderfarts better be in #3, though!). I would rather have no Hawkeye or Black Widow or Hulk in #2, than no Wasp and Goliath.
I am really looking forward to this flick, but not happy with the new Ultron origin minus Pym. I definitely want Pym in Avengers, and I want him as Ant-Man in the movie of the same name. I am happy Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are getting their due, though. Hope to see Kang eventually as well.

To give Ultron some sort of presence as a proper badass in Avengers 2 he/it? should kill off all of the S.H.E.I.L.D team in the 1st act of the movie. That would be something that would make the audience sit up in their seats a bit.

SPOILERS!
Iron Man’s Jarvis becomes Ultron, possibly by taking over one of Tony’s suits. All set up in the first 3 Iron Man movies, and they emphasized Jarvis and his control of the suits in III.
Coulson has survived by becoming an android. He’s due to become the Vision in later films. What would work better than a very human character we’ve all grown attached to having to deal with becoming a super-powered nonhuman?

I can’t wait to see how they explain how Coulson is alive. This show can be a great way to introduce us to new heroes that aren’t or might not have their own movie debuts. Like, The Amazing Spiderman heroes, Power Man, Tigress, s*** can’t remember the others but you get what I’m saying… Also, it could be cool to see Spiderman live action more then just a movie, or at least make episode appearances…

I think it would have been funny to have Coulson be his cousin or something, they could have done a lot of jokes with that, but what I don’t understand is, why not make the Avengers movies into 2 part movies? It’s worked for other movies, and then you get a lot more time to do a lot more in depth story lines and introduce more characters and cameo appearances. Will see, but I hope they really have fun with this new series coming to t.v. because there’s so much that can be done with this.

Ok colson is going to be in the next movie and heres why. One everyone agrees now the coulson is super in someway or another and mosst likely he is a machine right? His agility is just to much. So in the tenth episode we find out about this pyscic predicting the future and stuff this guy is ultron calling it now. So what does Ultron want with coulson? Coulson thinks like a human but is a machine the start to the perfect race. That whats ultrons goal is right? So obviuosly we wont find out who this grand whatever is till AVG 2 but still this thoery makes sense.

It will be confusing for those who didn’t watch ABC’s Agents to rejustify in Avengers 2 why coulson isn’t dead.

However, why make him director if they can’t use him in the movie?

Wouldn’t Avengers 2 pick up on Captain A 2 where SHIELD went bust because of Hydra? And Coulson is meant to use the box Fury gave him to redevelop SHIELD? There needs to be some sort of SHIELD to help the Avengers and Coulson is the main point?

Also, Fury called Coulson an ‘Avenger’?

Also is Peggy Carter going to return in Avengers 2 or Captain 3? If so how will they make her young again? (I know the new spin of Carter show, but will she come back younger for the films)?

Maybe Agent Coulson won’t be in the Avengers 2 movie, but I think the new SHIELD he’s rebuilding currently in the series will appear in the movie. After all, The Avengers are a part of SHIELD, it’s why they were assembled in the first place. Perhaps SHIELD agents will appear, under orders of ‘The Director’ and the gang assumes they mean Fury, when it’s really Coulson? Could be why he’s in the trailer, why he makes an appearance again.

Hey, who knows; perhaps we’ll start to see the beginnings of Ultron in Agents of SHIELD, since so far they’ve mentioned every Avenger, including Tony Stark, who supposedly is the one who develops Ultron. I hear rumors that Ultron was a SHIELD protective measure, and Tony restores it.

If that happens to be true, then maybe we will see the beginnings of Ultron in the show after all.

I find this annoying because in the series, Coulson is now the director of shield, which is a pretty big deal. Are they just going to pretend that shield is completely gone? I know that’s what the world assumes but it isn’t.